


I Am For You

by art_and_other_rhythms



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-28
Updated: 2015-07-28
Packaged: 2018-04-11 15:46:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,690
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4441766
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/art_and_other_rhythms/pseuds/art_and_other_rhythms
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ichabbie, a hospital room, and a subtle shift to something more - in more ways than one. One-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	I Am For You

A constant stream of close-calls, gory battles, unspeakably horrid ordeals had culminated in this, Abbie’s first serious visit to the hospital since the whole Roanoke escapade. How unpleasant then, to find her fortunes now reversed, bed-ridden, exhausted and weak like those others not long ago. It seemed, now, like a time long past.

She woke in a sterile room, walls that may once have been a shining white now dulled from age, blue tiles peeling up in places along the floor. She had on a blue hospital gown. The crisp sheets and the gown both crackled under her shifting weight as only those too-papery hospital materials do. Taking stock of her surroundings comforted her. None of the senses too dulled - have to take that as a good sign, she thought. In fact, she felt surprisingly well-rested and rejuvenated - for someone who had, just recently, died.

The early afternoon light streaming through the partially curtain-covered window (floral pattern curtains - how she hated floral pattern) cast a soft, benevolent glow over the scene. She was alone, mercifully. She had a few private moments to take stock of what had happened.

Taking a resurrected Moloch’s bait. Foolishly allowing him to get her alone in one-to-one combat in a rash attempt “save her partner’s and her sister’s souls.” Falling victim to a nightmare landscape illusion of Moloch’s invention. Crane storming in after her, armed to the teeth with every modern weaponry he could lay his hands on, bullet-proof vest and all, furious at her for going alone (how long had she been alone in that mirage? It felt like seconds and eons both). Together, slaughtering an endless onslaught of demons, spiders, nightmare creatures with no name. Together, the death blow that with any luck had killed this son of a bitch for good this time. But not before…

Moloch’s long-clawed hand through her ribcage. The sensation of drying up from the inside as she crumbled, dying (and, apparently, newly soulless) to the ground. Crane cradling her, openly terrified and wild as she’d ever seen him…

She had expected death to be a slow, almost cinematic fade to black. Not the slamming, forceful nothing that engulfed her far, far before she was ready.

Seemed unfair to remember the death, but not anything after death. Boring. Fuck… had she really gone and died?

She had. Which means there was only one possible way she was even here now. The thought made her somehow inexpressively sad.

But her sadness would have to wait. Clearly the powers that be at this hospital deemed her fit enough for enthusiastic, frantic guests - as a nurse opened the door calmly and quietly, Jenny bounded swiftly into the room and skidded to a halt as she beheld her sister. Her whole face seemed to crumble under the weight of worry and uncertainty, and she practically flew into Abbie’s arms.

“I hate you I love you I hate you I love you don’t ever do that you’re the worst you’re the best God don’t ever again I love you so much…”

That hug lasted a good five minutes at least as neither fought to conceal their tears, and they suddenly appeared for all the world as the two young girls they had once been, shielded for a little while from the bitterest forces of man and hell by the bond of their sisterhood. Abbie wondered errantly if the nurse was still there, and if so, what theories she was concocting about what had happened to warrant such a dramatic reunion on the bed of a young woman who seemed, at the moment, to have not gone through that much. She felt fine, actually. More than fine.

As Jenny sat on the bed excitedly chattering about nothing to fill the silence, Reyes ducked her head in, and Abbie didn’t have to wonder if Reyes was curious about what was up. She knew Reyes was wondering what was up. For better or worse, time to bring her into the fold, Abbie thought just as-

Crane peered uncertainly around the corner, and suddenly it felt, once again, as though she has been slammed full in the chest. But not, she found, in an unpleasant way this time. He was so much cleaner than when she last saw him, greasy and soot-covered and battle-hardened and in complete disarray. He had on a clean white shirt, the first few buttons undone, tucked into his newly spotless trademark brown trousers. He appeared freshly-showered. All-together the epitome of put-together and serene. She wondered, oddly, if he had put extra effort into his appearance for this reunion.

Her eyes fell first, on his hands, fingers almost vibrating softly like hummingbirds from the sheer will exerted by not flexing them anxiously. His hair was pulled back in its queue, not a hair out of place. As soon as he entered, both Jenny and Reyes, who had still been hanging about, sensed a shift in the room’s atmosphere.

As they both got up to leave, Jenny leaned in closely and whispered conspiratorially, “Don’t let him try to play it cool. He’s been beside himself. Barely left your side since you got here.”

With a kiss on the cheek from Jenny and a nod from Reyes, Ichabod and Abbie were alone at last, and is then Abbie finally, finally looked him full in the eyes. The familiar blue orbs danced with such a potent mixture of relief, pride, trepidation, joy, and intense affection that Abbie’s eyes threatened to well. Sensing words would ruin the moment, Abbie managed only a small, knowing smile, his returning smile taking over his face as he made his way over to sit by her side.

\- - - -

“I remain, as always, humbled by the pleasure of your company. I feared any number of those young officers might have dueled me for the honor of escorting you out.”

They sat on a bench overlooking the harbor the afternoon she was released from the hospital after a day or two of observation.

“Who else would I possibly have wanted with me, Crane?”

He stammered, uncharacteristically, “W-Well, one can never… presume too much…”

“Can’t you?” she replied softly.

He blushed still harder, as they let the tender moment blossom between them in warm silence.

“Anyhow, presume away. Not least of which because what am I supposed to talk to any of those other guys about? ‘Wow, you guys, this past weekend was hell…”

She chuckled lightly at her own joke, before turning her eyes thoughtfully out on the water. “Honestly, I’m not ready for those questions just yet. I don’t figure I’ll go back right away. Have to take some time to make sense of all this.”

“Take all the time you need, Lieutenant. Your well-being is the foremost concern.”

Another brief silence. And then:

“You used the Merge, didn’t you Crane?”

He turned to look at her fully. “Yes.” He breathed.

The Merge had been a recent discovery of the past few months. An incantation that can be used between two people. If the connection is strong enough, then in life-threatening situations, and if one person finds themselves robbed of their soul, the other may cast the Merge to merge their souls together, lending them each a piece of the new, combined soul, to make them both stronger and to save the life. Abbie knew this had to have happened - it’s the only way she could have been saved from death, and they both could be feeling so miraculous after such a nightmare. One day, I’d like just one silly little supernatural thing we read to not have to come in handy later, she thought bitterly.

“So what, we’re each running on half a soul now?” she asked, attempting to frame it as a joke.

He cleared his throat. “Well, at the risk of being pedantic, it’s not my soul at all anymore. It’s our soul. I made sure Moloch was fully dispatched, and when I recited it, our life essences combined to create a new essence. The essence of “we.” Rather like mixing colors, Lieutenant. And, yes, we both safeguard our own halves.”

She smiled. “So, yeah. Half one soul each. And no risk of being pedantic. You are.”

He chuckled lightly, but then her smile faded.

“Still, the guilt Crane, I… I just feel like I’ve taken something from you! To have you make a sacrifice of that size for me at the risk of yourself, it’s so dangerous…”

“And I would again, Lieutenant. And again, and again a million times over. No risk is too daunting, for there are no measures imaginable to any creature I would not take to ensure your safety and happiness. No apologies, no regrets.”

“As I would do for you.” Abbie declared softly.

“Precisely. It’s settled then” he declared back. “And I rather feel as though it were my turn to start making sacrifices for you.”

She looked up at him, he out to the horizon. She laughed, a short huff of air out of the nose, merely looking incredulously on this miraculous man, and the miracle of their partnership. She bumped him in the shoulder lightly.

“It’s kind of funny, actually. One soul. We’re literally soulmates Crane. Literally.”

He smiled. “And here I believed our bond to be incapable of becoming stronger.”

“Fate just had to show you up, huh?”

“It seems it did… Abbie.”

The subtle but palpable gear switch in their relationship was nonetheless a monumental one, one they both felt as he looked down at her, and she up at him. To say the words in that moment seemed near redundant. Was it their newly shared soul that lent this heightened connection? Their already rock-solid bond as Witnesses? Or both? Yes, both, and the certainty of their friendship and something more born and cultivated by their own choice.

So once again, instead of words, Abbie opted for silence. She instead took his larger hand between both of hers, calming the suddenly trembling fingers between her own.

“You’re a good man, Ichabod Crane.”

As they looked out on a known horizon and an unknown one, he breathed back:

“I am for you.”

**Author's Note:**

> Second ever fanfic. I have heard some people ask for more to this story - worth continuing?  
> Follow me on Tumblr at art-and-other-rhythms


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